Building a Flight Pen - Part 2: Creating an Exoskeleton for the Flight Pen
In the first blog of this series, I discussed the research that went into the start of our business and ended with placing the posts for the flight pen.
Our next step was to attach the aircraft cable. The aircraft cable is made of eighth inch wire coated in PVC to resist rusting (and much easier to handle as well). We tightly ran the cable first around the perimeter of the pen, attaching to the top of the posts with large staples. We brought two ten foot treated 2”x4”s inside the flight pen as extra supports and created a grid to find the perfect locations for the posts inside the pen using string attached to the outer posts. The two boards were placed appropriately and we attached aircraft cable across both boards and to the outside posts in one direction and across the individual boards to the outside posts in the other direction. Balancing the boards while attaching the wire tightly was a challenge and certainly required a tall ladder. The result was reminiscent to the supports of a circus tent and the beginnings of the exoskeleton that would hold up the netting for the flight pen.
Next, we dug a one foot deep by one foot wide hole around the entire outside perimeter so the chicken wire could be installed. The depth and width of the hole was important because we flared out the wire. This step has kept out predators such as fox because they are stopped by the flared wire when trying to dig under the fence. When installing, we rolled out one length of the pen at a time. Mike would go just past the post and keep the fence tight while I stapled to the posts. Keeping the wire as tight as possible was vital as any slack would cause the wire to sag between the posts (not a great look). We originally hammered staples in to attach the chicken wire to the posts. What an inefficient use of time. We quickly shifted to using an air-powered staple gun and my oh my what a difference that made.
The corners were the trickiest. We cut the bottom corner through the flare and shifted the best we could to start the next length. We have since learned that it is immensely easier to cut at the end after stapling and resetting for the next length. Only one area did not get dug and closed in wire: the area where the entrance would be! Once the wire was all up, we filled the soil back in around the chicken wire and were ready for the next big step. Check out our next blog in this series for details on how we installed the net over the flight pen!
